ABSTRACT

Future Papua New Guineans (PNG) start gambling from the 1880s. Gambling was then made illegal (for them but not for their colonizers). It takes off during World War II, becoming ubiquitous knowledge by the late 1970s, just after Papua New Guineans achieve independence from Australia. As incidence accelerates gambling relationships proliferate until they plateau at saturation point. This exciting, liberating, unpredictable cloud of activity became a threat to the prospect of an ordered, advancing independent modern nation-state. PNG legislators responded by banning playing cards completely. This is suggested as evidence of an ‘escalation’ because gambling became something new, a vehicle for imagining the nation as a truly connected whole through this relational technology, even if the image was an uneasy one. As the escalation occurred the acceleration plateaued once new recruits dried up and as economic development failed to materialize, revealing some useful socio-material guardrails for an anthropology of escalation.

摘要

未来的巴布亚新几内亚人（PNG）从1880年代开始赌博。赌博因此被定为违法行为（对他们而言，对殖民者而言则不然）。巴布亚新几内亚人脱离澳大利亚独立后，它在第二次世界大战期间起飞，并在1970年代后期成为无处不在的知识。随着发病率的提高，赌博关系不断扩散，直到达到饱和点的稳定水平。这种激动人心的，解放的，不可预测的活动云对有序，先进的独立现代民族国家的前景构成了威胁。PNG立法者的回应是完全禁止玩纸牌。建议将其作为“升级”的证据，因为赌博已成为一种新事物，是通过这种关系技术将国家想象成一个真正联系在一起的整体的工具，即使该形象令人不安。